Royston is well connected for a town that mostly doesn't use it. There are direct trains to London and Cambridge. Hardly anyone takes them to work. Broadband reaches almost every house. Most people drive, and plenty more never leave the house for work at all.
Royston Rail Station has direct trains to London and Cambridge, and Meldreth and Ashwell & Morden stations serve the villages to the west and north. Yet the 2021 Census found only about 4% of working residents commuting by train. There are 68 bus stops across the area, and buses carried well under 1% of commuters. The railway is good, but most of Royston gets to work some other way.
Driving is the biggest single mode, at about 42% of working residents, with about 39% working from home and about 9% walking. About 42% of households have two or more cars, and about 15% have none. The town splits between the multi-car commuters who drive and the remote workers who barely need a car, and the station gets the rest.
The Department for Transport models the trip to the nearest town centre at about 9 minutes by car, 11 by bike, 16 by public transport and 20 on foot. Those are modelled averages for the area, so they describe the town as a whole rather than any one house.
Gigabit-capable broadband reaches about 88% of premises, according to Ofcom, ultrafast about 90% and superfast about 99%. No premises fall below the legal minimum service level. Mobile coverage is near complete, with almost every postcode getting 4G or 5G on every network. For the remote-working households, the home connection matters more than the station, and it is the better of the two.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, which date from 2019, put a GP about 8 minutes away by car, 12 by public transport and 13 on foot. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or 10 on foot. Employment is about 15 minutes by car and 23 by public transport. Hospital is the long trip, at about 26 minutes by car and about 55 by public transport. The distances will not have changed since 2019, but bus services have been cut, so the public transport times are the least reliable of the set.
Of the 58 stops with timetable data, the average sees about 16 scheduled departures on a weekday and fewer than one an hour at peak. About 85% have some weekend service. Fewer than one bus an hour at the time people need to get to work explains why so few people commute by bus.
Official noise mapping treats road noise at 65 decibels as significant, and about 99% of Royston's postcodes are close to or above that level, with the loudest band reaching 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source: about 21% of postcodes are near the 65-decibel level from the railway, peaking at 70. Royston was founded where Ermine Street crossed the Icknield Way, and its noise map still remembers the crossroads. For any particular house, the government's strategic noise map for that exact postcode is the thing to check, because the town-wide share tells you little about a single address.
There are 3 public charging sites in the area, with 7 connectors between them, and 1 of those is rapid. With only one rapid charger, topping up while shopping is hard, so charging has to be planned, which suits the many households here with a driveway.
The road and the railway carry the commute, the broadband supports the people who work at home, and the bus barely registers. Royston is better connected than most market towns, and the people who live there mostly drive.